


everything comes back to you

by capebretons



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11052804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capebretons/pseuds/capebretons
Summary: See, Dylan’s usually not terrible at drinking, or at basic addition, or at the alphabet, or at texting the correct person in his phone. See, Dylan had meant to text Whiter, to see if Whiter could pick up some more hard alcohol on the way to the house party, but the problem with that is — see, Dylan doesn’t text Whiter. He thinks he texts Whiter, but he doesn’t.(Or: summer is a really good time to fall in love with your best friend. Maybe.)





	everything comes back to you

Like all bad stories, this one begins well after midnight.

See — Dylan’s usually not terrible at drinking, or at basic addition, or at the alphabet, or at texting the correct person in his phone. See — Dylan had meant to text Whiter, to see if Whiter could pick up some more hard alcohol on the way to the house party, but the problem with that is — see, Dylan doesn’t text Whiter. He thinks he texts Whiter, but he doesn’t.

So when Zach turns up, looking like he’s about to go on a first date, Dylan whips around to look at Hanny and says, borderline hysterically, “Why the  _ fuck _ is Werenski here?”

Hanny takes a steadying look at him, long and hard, then takes a slow sip of his beer. “I didn’t invite him,” he says, and there’s something like intent in his voice, but Dylan will choose ignore that for now.

(Dylan himself will not take the blame until much later, when he realizes that, alphabetically speaking,  _ White _ and _ Werenski _ are very similar.)

And because Dylan’s drinking and also staring, Zach’s eyes find him from across the basement, and he almost smiles as he raises his hand, not quite waving. Just. Acknowledging. 

Dylan doesn’t move, so it’s Boeser, sighing heavy next to him, who waves back. 

“You really need to figure your shit out, Larkin,” he huffs, somehow with finality, and wanders off in search of the keg.

 

\---

 

Like all good stories, this one begins in Michigan.

It’s the week before they graduate high school, and the past week and a half has been a blur of parties and exams and crying moms, like Dylan and Zach aren’t going to college just down the road, like Dylan and Zach won’t be coming home every weekend because neither of them can be bothered to learn how to do their own laundry.

They’re out on the lake, in a dinghy that technically belongs to Dvo, but Dvo never wants to go fishing with them. Fishing wasn’t even on the agenda today — just swimming and tanning and drinking until the sun goes down, when they’ll have to motor back to the dock and drive around until they find some fast food that won’t make them sick when mixed with beer.

A good day, by Dylan’s standards.

Dylan’s lying on his back in the hull of the boat (really, it’s a canoe, but boat sounds cooler), rocking back and forth, listening to the shitty Don McLean song Zach insists on playing from the bluetooth speaker, while Zach’s swimming out to the other side of the lake, just to prove he can. Dylan didn’t even dare him to.

Zach’s a bit of a show off, sometimes. That’s okay. He’s taller and bigger than Dylan, and girls talk to him more, because Dylan’s shy and looks a lot like a British teenaged wizard. Zach — Zach’s  _ built,  _ with broad shoulders and thick arms and legs that look like tree trunks. Dylan forgot where he was going with this.

But then the boat’s rocking, and Dylan opens an eye to see that Zach’s hoisted himself up to the gunwale, elbows out with his chin resting on the back of his hands. He’s looking down at Dylan, appraising, smiling small. Dylan looks away.

“You should swim,” Zach says, which means  _ get in the fucking water before I drag you. _

“You should take it easy on the protein powder,” Dylan shoots back, closing his eyes again. “Or I’ll tell your mom to test you for steroids.”

_ “Fine,” _ Zach sighs, long-suffering as ever, and he dips back into the water. 

 

 

Like all  _ great _ stories, this one begins the second high school’s over.

They graduate, and they go back to their respective homes to pop a bottle and shove some cake in their respective mouths, then they bike over to Whiter’s house, where everyone’s already getting shit-faced. Zach gets there first, texting somebody as Dylan shoves his bike over into the grass, because kick-stand are for high schoolers.

“Who could you possibly be texting right now,” Dylan says, still a little out of breath. “Everyone you’ve ever met is already here.”

“Suck my dick,” Zach says flatly, then shoves his phone back in his pocket. “Mac’s just being an idiot.”

They walk into the house, shoulder to shoulder, following the bass of the music and the noise of Eichs — well, being Eichs. Dylan can ignore that for now. “What’s he doing?” he asks, weaving between the couples making out in the foyer.

“He’s just — he’s — nosy,” Zach shrugs, and beelines for the cooler. Dylan’s right behind him.

“Meaning?” Dylan asks, taking the Coors Zach hands him.

Zach sighs, shrugging. “I don’t know. He keeps making a lot of assumptions, which are, like, a  _ hundred  _ percent unfounded—”

Dylan makes a face, pained. “Is this about a fucking girl, Werenski?”

Zach squints at him. “You are dumber than you look, Larkin.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Matthews says, in passing as he heads to the bathroom. “He looks pretty dumb.”

“Have you seen your face?” Larkin calls after him, and Auston’s response is an elevated middle finger. Larkin sighs, then turns back to Zach. “A guy, then?”

“It’s about nothing,” Zach shakes his head, rolling his eyes as he takes a long gulp of beer. 

“You’re being shitty,” Dylan says, flat. “You can tell me. I don’t care.”

“I know you don’t care,” Zach shoots back. “Neither do I. Especially not right now. I just want to — fuck. I want to go play stack cup.”

“You’re so bad at stack cup,” Dylan says, but goes in search of the game with Zach anyway.

 

 

Like all important stories, this one happens in Dylan’s car.

The summer is spent in Dylan’s car, driving from house party to house party, stopping at McDonald’s in between, picking up beer when the darty is too dry, and, just once, Zach falling asleep in the passenger seat.

It’s late, to be fair — two in the morning, with the sunroof open above them, and the air is warm but windy. Dylan’s playing a playlist he made in ninth grade, with a lot of Neil Young, and, yeah, it’s kind of nice. Zach’s mid-sentence, talking about how his mom will kill him if he’s late for curfew again, but then — out like a light. Head pressed against the side window, mouth hanging open, and breaths even and deep.

When Dylan stops at a red light, he tries not to stare at him.

Looking at Zach makes his chest hurt sometimes, but he’s trying not to dwell on that. Zach’s his friend, his  _ best _ friend, and, seriously — it’s not like this is the first time Zach’s fallen asleep in Dylan’s presence. (He means, like, in a sleepover setting. Dylan isn’t boring enough that people constantly fall asleep around him. At least, he doesn’t think he is.) 

But it’s the first time he’s thought about leaning over the center console, and pressing a soft, quick kiss to Zach’s shoulder, lingering just a minute longer to smell Zach, that same smell that’s bled into Dylan’s own smell, because he sees him so much, because they’re in each other’s space so often, because—

Looking at Zach makes his chest hurt sometimes, but not in a bad way.

 

 

Like all boring stories, Zach’s not there.

Zach’s family went on some graduation trip across Europe, late in July. Dylan is in Michigan. And not to shit on Michigan, but it’s not Paris, okay? Zach’s in fucking  _ Paris.  _ Every twenty seconds, Dylan gets a new Snapchat of a priceless painting, of a beautiful skyline, of a fucking  _ croissant, _ which, yeah, cool, great, but it wouldn’t kill Zach to send a selfie.

It’s just been a while since Dylan’s seen Zach’s face, is all.

And, because it takes two to fucking tango, Dylan sends him a zoomed-in picture of Hanny’s left elbow instead of a selfie of his own.

 

 

Like all happy stories, Zach is smiling.

They’re at Target, ostensibly looking for dorm bedding, but they’re kind of just wandering the aisles, sipping on coffee from the in-store Starbucks, and pointing out shit they’d never buy.

“I think our room needs a blow-up swan,” Zach says, nodding to the inflatable pool toy across the aisle.

“Those are for aquatic activities only,” Dylan shakes his head. “Ann Arbor is far too inland.”

“Fair point,” Zach allows.

“Do we need a ceramic cactus?” Dylan frowns, picking it up. “But who would we fool? The cactus is a desert plant, and our climate just can’t support that. We’re not good enough at horticulture, even if it is ceramic.”

Zach nods, solemn in his agreement. “We would find a way to kill it.”

“No, buddy,  _ you _ would. You kill everything.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“Okay, let’s just — you forgot to feed your goldfish, your liver is decomposing as we speak due to extreme abuse of alcohol, and I’m sure you have confused the brake with the accelerator when a squirrel darts into the road.”

Zach stops for a second, looks at Dylan out of the corner of his eye, which is him thinking he’s being slick. “Is rooming together a bad idea?”

Well, Dylan didn’t think so until  _ now. _ “What?”

Zach’s eyes go wide, and Dylan knows that look, because suddenly he’s playing defense. “Look, not that I don’t love you, man, but — we’re gonna be spending pretty much every minute together. We’re in the same classes, we’re friends with the same people. I’ll be seeing you more than I see my parents.”

Dylan blinks. “How is that any different than now?”

Zach blinks back. “I don’t — I don’t know. It’s more official, I guess.”

Dylan blinks again. “More official than your mom calling me this morning to make sure that you actually  _ have _ been sleeping in my bed, and you’re not lying at the bottom of Lake Erie?”

“To be fair,” Zach says, after thinking for a minute, “we don’t always make it to your bed.”

Which, Dylan understands, sounds a lot more alluring than it is. But that just means that Zach falls asleep in the middle of a game of Madden sometimes and Dylan’s not strong enough to carry 210 pounds of Werenski so they can raft in a twin bed. And then there was that one time when they were so drunk they passed out in the middle of Dylan’s kitchen, in the process of pan-frying Pop Tarts, which are as bad as they sound. Especially when they’ve burned, because you’ve fallen asleep making them.

(This is all to say that Dylan has not had the nerve to do much of anything about How He Feels About Zach. Zach’s shoulder (and every other bit of Zach) remains unkissed.)

They end up buying the ceramic cactus, because Dylan really, really doesn’t want Zach to think twice about rooming together, and if that means they have an ornamental, potted, lime-green desert plant in their tiny, frigid dorm room, then, well. Okay.

 

Like all terrifying stories, there’s fire.

To be fair, it’s a bonfire on the beach, and Charlie and Chucky are insisting that everyone play Truth or Dare, which is stupid, because they’re all too drunk to try and think about  _ rules.  _ Auston’s got his tongue in some girl’s throat down the beach, and Roslovic is flirting with said girl’s friend, and Kells is too focused on rolling a joint from Kunin’s shitty weed to pay much attention to anything. 

And, as per usual, Dylan and Zach have extracted themselves from everyone else. They’re down at the shoreline, away from the Kanye and shit-talking, their feet in the surf. The sun’s just barely down, enough that everything around them is tinted velvety-blue. Dylan looks up, stupid and hopeful, and there are hardly any stars out.

“I’m glad we’re going together,” Zach says, sudden enough that it makes Dylan jump. “To Michigan. Shit wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

Dylan balks, and shrugs to fill the space. “You’d have been fine, man.”

Zach looks out onto the water, shoulders set to match his jaw. “I don’t know, dude. Do you ever — do you ever feel like we’re a little codependent?”

And it’s not the first time Zach’s hinted that they’re just a little  _ too _ close, and Dylan fucking hates that. He knows he’s clingy, but he thought that was okay, because Zach’s clingier. But this — it’s making Dylan think that Zach — Zach must know. 

(Dylan’s been thinking about a lot more than just Zach’s shoulder, these days.)

So Dylan coughs, but his voice still comes out all cracked when he says, “Sorry.”

Zach turns to look at him, and there’s something in his face that Dylan can’t read, and that scares him. “Don’t be sorry.”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Dylan says, and his voice still isn’t all there.

“Is it?” Zach asks, and there’s something off in the way he says it, and Dylan doesn’t want to faint right now, but his knees aren’t feeling too strong.

Dylan shrugs, helpless. “I don’t know. You’re my best friend.”

Zach looks down at the sand, at his feet, inches from Dylan’s. “You’re my best friend, too.”

They wander back to the bonfire after that, but shit’s different. They sit just a little farther apart, and don’t look at each other much. At the end of the night, Zach gets a ride home from Auston.

 

 

Like all weird stories, this one starts with a phone call from Zach Werenski, fifteen minutes after three in the morning.

He’s at Brock’s house, he says, because Brock’s parents are in Minnesota for the weekend. Dylan is home. Dylan didn’t know there was a party tonight.

“Oh, I thought Kells would have texted you,” and Dylan can see Zach’s frown, because he always has this same little pout when he’s drunk and vaguely inconvenienced. “Shit. I’m just leaving now. Can I sleep it off at your house? My mom will murder me if I come home this fucked up.”

Dylan sighs, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Text me when you’re here.”

There’s a text about two minutes later saying  _ here, _ which is strange in itself, because Brock lives twenty minutes from Dylan. And then Zach is leaned up against the doorway, head tilted, eyelids heavy. There’s a liquid spilled on his Red Wings t-shirt, and he smells like Four Loko, but Dylan’s been there before, and cannot judge.

“Hi there,” Dylan says, his voice low, as he steps back to let Zach in.

“Evening,” Zach says easily, and mimes tipping his hat, which is weird, even drunk.

Zach leads the way to Dylan’s bed, because he knows his way around the Larkin household. Dylan doesn’t think about that too often.

And Dylan also averts his eyes as Zach shimmies out of his clothes until he’s down to his socks and his boxers, which — which.

Dylan gets in bed first, and Zach follows not long after. And then they’re nose to nose, but that’s only because they both have kind of big noses. But that doesn’t mean Zach has to stare at Dylan like that, not when they’re both unguarded, sleepy and tipsy and not — not ready.

“Why do things feel different?” Zach says, and Dylan wishes he wouldn’t ask so many questions.

“I don’t know,” he says, even though that’s admitting that, yes, things feel different between them.

“Is it bad-different?” Zach asks, and he might be moving closer, but Dylan can’t look away from Zach’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” Dylan says again, and his words are thin.

Zach is definitely closer now, close enough that his lips are barely grazing Dylan’s, not quite kissing Dylan as he asks, “Is it my fault?”

Dylan barely hears himself say no.

Zach kisses him then, and Dylan kisses him back.

It shouldn’t feel this good, and it shouldn’t feel like they’ve done this before. But, but — Dylan knows Zach, inside and out, and this is — this is an extension of him, and Dylan knows the way he moves, the way his body works, and this isn’t all that different, except this is totally different, and Dylan feels like he’s floating on a firework.

“I like you,” Zach says, and his lips are still on Dylan’s. “But only because I don’t want to tell you I love you yet.”

“I love you, too,” Dylan says, and kisses him back until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

 

 

And, because not all stories can be nice ones, Dylan wakes up to an empty bed and a text saying  _ fuck I’m sorry. _

And Dylan doesn’t regret jack-fucking-shit about last night, this story sucks just a little bit more.

And Zach does, and that’s what makes it suck all the more.

They’re — friends, Dylan tries to rationalize. And they got weird last night, both of them too, too — soft, maybe? And a kiss is a kiss is a kiss, and shit like this has to happen to everyone, has to happen all the time. What roommates haven’t kissed? What friends haven’t kissed? Dylan knows for a cold, hard fact that Kunin and Whiter have made out on four different occasions. Dylan and Zach can’t be too different, right?

But —

It felt different.

Dylan turns his phone off and places it back on his bedside table before shoving his head under his pillow and trying to ignore the smell of Zach on his sheets.

He wakes up a little after five in the evening, to forty-nine texts about a party at Whiter’s house. Fitzy has emphasized the text saying  _ BRING ALCOHOL,  _ and well, Dylan won’t turn that down right now.

 

\---

 

So Zach’s eyes find him from across the basement, and he almost smiles as he raises his hand, not quite waving. Just. Acknowledging. 

Dylan doesn’t move, so it’s Boeser, sighing heavy next to him, who waves back. 

“You really need to figure your shit out, Larkin,” he huffs, somehow with finality, and wanders off in search of the keg.

And that’s Zach, still standing across the room, looking unsure.

Dylan downs a shot of Something, and goes to face his best friend.

When they’re only inches apart, Dylan makes a promise to himself not to smell him. Smelling him would be a weird move. So, he takes the only slightly better route, and talks.

“I’m not sorry,” he says, because he can’t  _ not _ say it. “I’m not sorry about last night. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, though, and I get it, if rooming would be weird, but I’m not sorry we kissed. I have — I wanted that. For a long time.”

Zach stares, and it’s quiet for a little bit, and in the distance, there’s Eichel, singing along to Toto’s  _ Africa. _

“You’re unbelievable,” Zach says finally, and it’s like a dam breaks, because he’s talking, and he’s all lit up, and this is Dylan’s best friend, eyes wide and bright and unafraid, and he’s fucking  _ grinning,  _ and Dylan loves him. “You are un-fucking-believable. I have — Larkin, I have wanted you since — I don’t fucking know — seventh grade?  _ That’s _ a long time. And I was — I was just, I don’t know, I was freaking out, because I didn’t know if I could handle  _ living _ with you and not being able to, fuck, I don’t know. Kiss you? Be with you? And I thought I could tone it down and we’d be cool, but then things got awkward, and last night, I’m sorry, dude, I—”

Zach doesn’t get to finish that sentence. Dylan can’t watch his mouth move that fast and not kiss him. Sorry. He’s a just a man.

So he’s kissing Zach Werenski, Best Friend and Soon-to-be-Roommate, in Colin White’s basement. He hopes this counts as figuring his shit out. His shit feels figured.

 

 

So this story ends with Zach driving Dylan back to Zach’s house, because Dylan’s mom is tired of having to cook them both breakfast in the morning.

Zach leans over to kiss Dylan at red lights, and it feels  _ right, _ it feels like they should have been doing this the whole damn time, because Zach’s his best friend, and how did they not? How did they make it this long without making out?

“How did we make it this long without making out?” Zach says later that night, after they’ve done a lot more than making out in Zach’s bed.

“Seventh grade, you said?” Dylan asks, and his hand finds Zach’s head, and his fingers knot themselves deep, and he pulls just a little bit, until Zach rests his cheek against Dylan’s chest.

“I knew you’d be annoying about that.”

“Asking questions is annoying?”

“ _ You’re _ annoying.”

“I thought you loved me, Werenski.”

Zach stiffens. “Never said that.”

“You kinda did.”

“I don’t think I ever said those words.”

“You said something like them,” Dylan says, and presses a kiss into Zach’s hair.

Zach’s quiet, contemplative. “You said it, though.” A little pause, and Zach brings his head up, and he looks at Dylan like he did that day on Dvo’s dinghy, small, appraising, but pleased. “You said you love me.”

And Dylan wishes he were witty, but he’s not. “I do,” he says, and shrugs, to make it seem a little bit less corny. (It looks cornier.) “And you can say it, too. I promise I won’t make fun of you.”

And Zach grins, considering for a long while, before he opens his mouth and says, “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from "this town" by niall horan, because of course it is!
> 
> thank you for reading! i hope i did these two justice.


End file.
